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Topography of Seo, Jeong-In's Novel

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2012, (80), pp.129-162
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Kim, Mi-ja 1

1전남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the study on the overall theme of Seo, Jeong-In's novel from the aspect of authorship. 'Topography of Seo, Jeong-In's novel' is the task of identifying the consciousness of issue consistently revealed in Seo's novel since his literary debut. This is the task of examining the inclination of the writer, as well as identifying the writer's consciousness of the world revealed in his novel. If 'form is another expression of content', Seo, Jeong-In's unique 'consciousness of language' and 'form experiment' is one of his narrative strategies to embody the theme. Accordingly, the issue of identifying how 'the consciousness of theme' revealed throughout his novel is reflected through 'the writer's consciousness of the world' was considered to be a starting of the study of Seo, Jeong-In's novel. Seo, Jeong-In's novel is situated on the coordinate where the horizontal axis of human's pure nature and the vertical axis of the tyranny of disciplinary power including war and the capitalized reality of industrialized society meet. The overall theme and content of his novel can be mainly divided into, first, the case of embodied life of individual expose to the tyranny of disciplinary power the realizes war and totalitarianism, and second, the case of showing various aspects of experiencing absurdity in the fetishified reality of industrialized society. Seo, Jeong-In considers war, tyranny of national disciplinary power and depraved capitalism of industrial society as the factors that impede the happiness of individuals in the pluralized modern society. What is shown in his series of works that traced how the life of individuals are changed under the massive violence of war is the fact that war has led the life of individuals to the life of 'beast'. In addition, it was inevitable that individuals lost 'self' and experienced 'chaos' as a result of uninhibited oppression of 'standardizing' people and taming them into 'accommodating' existences by advocating disciplinary power. 'War' and 'national power' that have been seizing our lives since the past are violence that even mandated the thoughts and actions of individuals, and what has seized the lives of individuals in modern industrial society is 'money'. The aspect of absurd life of social constituents in industrial society stemmed from the power of 'money', and it is the reality of those of us chasing after 'exchange value'. Seo, Jeong-In aims at looking into the 'essence' through fact most of all. That is why his consciousness of them is not found within the superficial language but ingeniously concealed within on the other side. The reason why he has reproduced the diverse aspects of 'absurd life' exposed to 'the pain of war' and 'the depraved capitalistic reality' is to self-reflect the reality of 'right here, right now'. What has been set forth as an alternative to overcome this is the 'world view of relativism' that recognizes 'differences'. This is ultimately a way to induce the readers' self-reflection on 'I' and 'us', as well as allow social constituents to search for 'common good' in today's pluralistic society. Accordingly, Seo, Jeong-In's writings can be seen as in the process of fully revealing the reality we are faced with and searching for 'the indicator of true life'.

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